The Drama Teacherby Koren Zailckas

By the New York Times bestselling author of Mother, Mother and Smashed, a propulsive new thriller featuring a devious and unreliable narrator who will do anything to give her family a better life.Gracie Mueller is a proud mother of two and devoted wife, living with her husband Randy in upstate New York, her life complicated by the usual stressors and tedium—young children, marriage, money—and she’s settled down comfortably enough. But ...

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Reviews The Drama Teacher

Katie B1970-01-01

Grace Mueller is a con artist and if you can't stand unlikable characters this book probably isn't for you. She's the mother of two and in order to keep up their lifestyle she comes up with some crazy moneymaking schemes and eventually everything spins out of control. While the book was entertaining enough as I half rooted for Grace to get caught for her schemes and also half wanted her to get away, I didn't really feel like this was the most sat...

Lolly K Dandeneau1970-01-01

vai my blog:'Too old to play the ingénue, I took on the role of pampered housewife instead.'Gracie Mueller isn’t about to let her husband sink the perfect life she has created for her precious family. With their home in foreclosure, she is grasping to save them from financial ruin. Luckily for her, she has skills that her husband doesn’t even know about. Her past has been shrouded from him, that other self is dead. If she has to turn his gaz...

Susan Kennedy1970-01-01

I honestly was on my way to hating this book. It has a long drawn out beginning that was a bit boring and hard to follow. Close to the half way point, the main protagonist allows someone to drown and the book changed for me at the point. Kind of makes me wonder about myself a bit. This book is just full of lies, deceit and cons. She is a con man and she learned it all from her father and then continued to learn from her husband. Everything she di...

Chandra Claypool (wherethereadergrows)1970-01-01

Wow. I'm actually really torn on what to think about this novel. This is a character study of a woman who endured a difficult childhood with a crazy father. This shaped her adulthood and set her on a path that she does not know how to get out of. Told strictly through Gracie, traveling from her childhood to her present day, the author takes you right into Gracie's thoughts, her fears, her intelligence and her manipulative ways. Somehow, I never g...

Rebecca1970-01-01

Thanks to the publisher, via Netgalley, for an advance egalley in exchange for an honest review. 3.5, rounded up. As many other reviews have stated, if you are not a fan of unlikeable narrators, this will not be a story to pick up, as the main character, Gracie, does a number of things that to her, are in the name of survival, but might be unpalatable to those who don't have her history. It takes time to reveal her full history, but the story of ...

Kim1970-01-01

Geeze this book was a wild ride! Talk about unreliable narrators. A twisty turny psychological read that will keep you fully engrossed. Some technical details were off but hey you can't win them all. The narrator is a true scam artist. Any scam will do. She runs all kinds of scams. This book is a plethora of scams. The reader finds themselves wondering how soon the narrator will be caught in her web of lies. But that turns out to just be the tip ...

Anne1970-01-01

I'm a sucker for flawed characters or unreliable narrators so this one was a thrill ride for me! When we first meet Gracie she appears to be a loving mother of two young children who is bored as a stay-at-home mom and is simply attempting to make friends--well, at least rich friends who can spend money without worry. We soon discover her husband's schemes have landed their house in foreclosure and now she must scramble to find a way out. Fortunat...

Denise1970-01-01

I loved Koren Zailckas's MOTHER, MOTHER, so I was super excited to be granted an ARC of THE DRAMA TEACHER by the publisher and Netgalley in return for an honest review. In all honesty, I could not put this book down!THE DRAMA TEACHER contained all of the elements that I love in a novel: fantastic character development, a plot full of roller coaster twists and turns, tension, suspense, love and an unreliable narrator. In this case, the narrator wa...

Amber Machado1970-01-01

So, i won a copy of The Drama Teacher by @KorenZailckas on @goodreads its a good read! I read the whole book in one afternoon and it was definitely awesome! Gracie is very good con artist and manipulator that is until things go crazy and over her head! Check it out!!

Kayo1970-01-01

From other reviews, I had expected to like this more. Seemed a bit overdone, like it was trying to hard. Thanks to author, publisher and NetGalley for the chance to read this book. While I got the book for free, it had no bearing on the rating I gave it.

Helen1970-01-01

Thanks to Penguin First to Read for providing a free uncorrected proof for review. (There were definitely many cases missing letters/words and missing/misplaced punctuation that will hopefully be fixed when published. One sentence of dialogue was cut off, so I'm curious about its content.)I was pleasantly surprised by quality of the writing and the consistency of the plot. Our protagonist, former conwoman Gracie, is riveting from the start -- whe...

Ceelee Sunshine1970-01-01

Thank you First To Read for giving me a free advanced copy of this amazing book, in exchange for my honest review!I thoroughly enjoyed The Drama Teacher It worked for me on so many levels. Being a music/theater major in college and occasionally after working in the profession, I really enjoyed the parts concerning the theater. I also thought the author did a great job with the characters. I thought they seemed real and believable without too much...

Laura1970-01-01

The Drama Teacher by Koren Zailckas is a real page turner: A con-mom grifter-thriller in the vein of Catch Me If You Can. The story is timely - a confident, adept female protagonist, even a criminal one in these tumultuous times, is apt to find more fans than ever.The story centers around single mom Gracie Mueller with two children by different fathers, trying to make a living while dodging the ghosts of her past. This could be a bit tedious in t...

Nancy1970-01-01

Thank you to the First to Read program for the offering of The Drama Teacher. Initially I was not crazy about Grace. The novel begins with Grace at a resort pool near Woodstock, New York. Grace sneaks her daughter and son into the pool and she then befriends another woman at the pool, Melanie, who is very well off. Melanie is taken in by Grace and her need to help others. Grace is trying to cobble together a life for her children while her husban...

Stella1970-01-01

I'm a big fan of Koren Zailckas and her writing. There's a truth to her writing. Smashed was raw and open and painful and the reason that I was excited to read The Drama Teacher. It took me awhile to get started. I read the first chapter - felt it was very chick-lit/thriller - and put it down for about a week. After picking it back up, I found, instead, a character study of a woman who only knows how to lie and con people for her own gain. Gracie...

Sally Stieglitz1970-01-01

The Drama Teacher by Koren Zailckas Gracie Mueller, mom of two and deliciously unreliable narrator, begins by outing herself as huckster/scam artist/liar, manipulating suburban moms and country club accounts to provide for her family while avoiding financial difficulties created by her current husband Randy’s poor luck in the real estate bubble and drug habit. When a easy mark offers Gracie an opportunity to separate the mark from her money, an...

Justina1970-01-01

This one was a bit of a slower book and I considered stopping a few times throughout reading it. I did end up finishing it, but it was just okay. There were parts where it would start to get exciting, but then would just fizzle out again. Gracie and her two kids live in the Catskills; her husband, Randy, spends most of his time in Florida trying to run his real estate business. Times have been hard and money is tight; the bank is foreclosing on t...

Lorna Gundaker1970-01-01

Thank you to First Reads for an ARC of this book. This novel takes a form that is very popular now—-the unreliable narrator. Gracie Mueller is an intelligent, manipulative, skillful liar and con artist. These are skills she absorbed early in childhood from her crazy, unstable father, and, following a pattern, her first husband. When Gracie’s second husband begins to have money problems, she turns to her con artist’s skills to provide the li...

Lauren1970-01-01

I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.This was the first novel I've read by Koren Zailckas - I read Smashed in my early 20s and quite enjoyed it, so I was looking forward to this book. Zailckas's writing style is fantastic - she engages the reader and there were many times that I didn't want to put the book down. That being said, the story is a little all over the place and there were times that ...

Stephanie Nelson1970-01-01

I can say that I truly loved this book. It was different then any book I have ever read, as far as the plot and storyline is concerned, and it really kept my interest all the way through. The story follows a woman who is forced to change her identity and life numerous times to outrun her past. She also has two children she drags through everything with her, and in the end the life she makes with them and a new love finally forces her to acknowled...

Jennifer Wrage1970-01-01

This book involved all types of conflict - parental, marital, financial, emotional. Being a teacher, I connected with the educational jargon that was used throughout the "teacher" section. I found it a little difficult to follow as the chapters jumped from past to present in an irregular pattern with no specific indicators until you read into them. The pace definitely picked up towards the climax and the ending was satisfyingly unexpected.

Cristin Grenier1970-01-01

Gracie is a strong female protagonist that I love to hate. She is a conwoman who gets stuck in her own con. The story is very creative and original. Zailckas is a fabulous writer. She leads us down many winding roads right to the surprising end. I would recommend this book for any mystery buff.

Jessica Stephens1970-01-01

Thank you to First To Read for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.I enjoyed this book and the suspense it provided as I read along, always wondering what would happen next. I especially liked the way it would switch between her childhood/early days with Oz and present time, because the author always seemed to provide us with the background information of how and why she does the things she does, at ju...

Coral1970-01-01

Amazing book! I loved this story and the main complex female character. All the characters were wonderfully done but the main character, wow! Yeah, for contemporary writers being able to create these kinds of stories. Already have the author's other books on my TBR list. The letter at the end of the story was amazing. This story just unravels with the best kind of twists and turns. Could not stop flipping the pages to find out what happens next.

Sarah1970-01-01

What do you do when you have re-written your early childhood in your head, no longer remember key facts and are dragged to another country by your less than honest father, to begin a life a crime? You learn the tricks of the trade and do your best to carry on. Until you have options of your own. The story weaves back and forth from present to past and back again, until the whole tale is tied together at the very end. We meet Gracie Mueller in the...

Jade1970-01-01

This one is a slow burner, and it gets better and better as you work your way through the storyline. I always enjoy a good, solid psychological thriller, and The Drama Teacher fits well into that category. I also always enjoy a well-flawed character that, despite their shortcomings, inspires sympathy, and the main character in this book does exactly that.Gracie Mueller seems to be living the life of a pretty normal middle class mother of two, mar...

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